1. Field of the Invention
The present invention refers to an improved kind of griddle or plate for cooking food products in a quick manner on both sides thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Widely known in the art are currently broilers, or griddles, that are used to cook food products of the most varied kind, such as hamburgers, toasted rolls, meat in general, and the like.
The features and peculiarities of such griddles are extensively described in the European patent application EP 06 111 596.0 filed by this same Applicant, which reference should therefore be made to for reasons of brevity and greater illustrative simplicity.
Griddles of the kind described in the above-cited document have proven to be simple to manufacture and easy to operate; however, in practical use they have been found to be connected with a particular drawback tending to affect their capability of being used in a satisfactory manner and, as a result, their actual acceptance by the users, such drawback lying practically in the fact that the heating elements (27) are placed and arranged in close proximity of the bottom heating surface (3) and the microwave generator is in turn provided under the heating surface and, as a result, also under the heating elements, and is of course oriented upwards. It therefore ensues that the microwaves have necessarily to pass through the heating elements, which undesirably form an ample shield opposing the propagation of the microwaves and prevent in a clearly appreciable manner the same microwaves from being able to fully efficiently and effectively reach the food product placed upon the bottom heating surface.
Needless to say that such a problem is further aggravated by the drawbacks deriving from electromagnetic coupling problems brought about by such unacceptable shielding effect created by the heating elements.
Known from the disclosure in WO 03/098972 (O ZON INC.) is an apparatus for processing small food portions, such as toasted and filled rolls, small pizzas and the like, with the aid of microwaves. This apparatus is made so as to feature small cavities or chambers having a flat bottom and raised peripheral edges, and such chambers are capable of being closed from above by means of a kind of microwave-tight cover. In addition, such chambers can be heated with the use of heating means of any traditional kind as largely known as such in the art, so that the food product being placed inside these cooking chambers for processing is exposed to both a conventional heating treatment and a microwave heating treatment at the same time when the related chamber is closed.
No indication is, however, given in the above-cited document as to how the traditional, or thermal, heating means can be prevented from at the same time acting as a shield opposing microwave propagation, nor is any teaching given as to the construction measures that can be taken in view of avoiding such an undesirable effect.
Known from the disclosure in WO 99/44394 is an apparatus for cooking foods by both traditional electric heating and microwave heating. However, the food products being cooked—although fully capable of being baked, i.e., grilled in a traditional manner, owing to the two mutually opposing grilling/heating surfaces (2′) being able to be displaced into contacting the food to be cooked (4)—cannot practically being treated with the emission of microwaves in any satisfactorily even manner, since such microwave emission takes place in a direction that is parallel to the grilling/heating surfaces themselves. Moreover, the cavity or chamber, in which the food to be processed is contained and retained, can be closed through double handling calling for the bottom grilling/heating surface to be displaced, i.e., moved horizontally and the top grilling/heating surface to be lowered. This adds inconvenience in the use of the apparatus and lengthens the time usually needed to operate it, further introducing complications in the construction of the apparatus.